Self-defense Workshop, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles

The Seniors Fight Back team was first created due to all the Hate Incidents and Hate Crimes that were targeting the seniors in the AAPI community. We wanted to create self-defense classes to bring community, empowerment, and safety for our AAPI elders. The classes are led by Ron Scolesdang, professional Muay Thai fighter with 20+ years of self-defense experience. The course includes non-invasive and invasive segments. 

Our program aims to arm seniors with the mental awareness to avoid a potentially physical or life-threatening situation, as well as prepare seniors with practical physical techniques that may help them get away from the attacker. All the moves are geared to work for people who have no prior fighting or martial arts experience, and specifically for our seniors. There are also assistant instructors with martial arts experience holding pads for participants to practice the techniques on.  We also distribute free pepper spray, safety alarms and whistles to the participants in the class. 

The world is a broken place and it’s unfortunate the horrors that our AAPI community are forced to witness and experience acts of hate. We hope our participants leave the event feeling empowered and find comfort that there are people looking out for them.